Title: Warsztat diabła

Place:
Warszawa, Poland

Publisher:
W.A.B.

Year: 2013

Pages: 192

Genre:
Prose

Foreign rights

Pluh

Contacts

Grants

As in Topol’s previous work, the quest for traces of history again becomes enmeshed in a surreal carnivalesque plot. The laconically narrated story presents an archeology of horror, with layer upon layer revealing the recent European past. As the last members of the generation to have lived through it all die out, Topol shows how their descendents struggle to preserve the violent stories, which they understand to be their last anchor in authenticity – but they flounder in the machinery of commerce, musealization and politics. Topol succeeds admirably in not simplifying and not throwing all values onto a postmodern scrap heap of history. Published by Torst in Czech 2009. Polish review.